is distance?" cried Chaudieu.

"Is there any distance for the mind?" replied Calvin, sternly, for he
thought the interruption irreverent. "Catherine seeks power, and women
with that in their eye have neither honor nor faith. But what is she
doing now?"

"I bring you a proposal from her to call a species of council," replied
Theodore de Beze.

"Near Paris?" asked Calvin, hastily.

"Yes."

"Ha! so much the better!" exclaimed the Reformer.

"We are to try to understand each other and draw up some public
agreement which shall unite the two churches."

"Ah! if she would only have the courage to separate the French Church
from the court of Rome, and create a patriarch for France as they did
in the Greek Church!" cried Calvin, his eyes glistening at the idea thus
presented to his mind of a possible throne. "But, my son, can the niece
of a Pope be sincere? She is only trying to gain time."

"She has sent away the Queen of Scots," said Chaudieu.

"One less!" remarked Calvin, as they passed through the Porte de Rive.
"Elizabeth of England will restrain that one for us. Two neighboring
queens will soon be at war with each other. One is handsome, the other
ugly,--a first cause for irritation; besides, there's the question of
illegitimacy--"

He rubbed his hands, and the character of his joy was so evidently
ferocious that de Beze shuddered: he saw the sea of blood his master was
contemplating.

"The Guises have irritated the house of Bourbon," said Theodore after a
pause. "They came to an open rupture at Orleans."

"Ah!" said Calvin, "you would not believe me, my son, when I told you
the last time you started for Nerac that we should end by stirring up
war to the death between the two branches of the house of France? I
have, at least, one court, one king and royal family on my side. My
doctrine is producing its effect upon the masses. The burghers, too,
understand me; they regard as idolators all who go to Mass, who paint
the walls of their churches, and put pictures and statues within them.
Ha! it is far more easy for a people to demolish churches and palaces
than to argue the question of justification by faith, or the real
presence. Luther was an argufier, but I,--I am an army! He was a
reasoner, I am a system. In short, my sons, he was merely a skirmisher,
but I am Tarquin! Yes, _my_ faithful shall destroy pictures and pull
down churches; they shall make mill-stones of statues to grind the
flour of the peoples. T